With the Grampians under my belt I ventured out of bottom gear and embarked on what felt like the home straight: 200 flattish miles to John O'Groats.

The route took me to Culloden, the scene on April 16 1746 of the last battle fought on British soil (excluding, of course, my own recent tussle with the elements and the gradients). On the bleak Drumossie moor, 1,000 of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Highlanders were killed in less than an hour as English troops brutally crushed the Jacobite uprising. A grazing flock of rare black Hebridean sheep keep the moor as bleak and treeless as on the day of battle.

In Inverness, at sea level, a traffic warden insisted implausibly that the next 20 miles over the Black Isle would be all downhill. Which indeed it was - after a grinding ascent across the peninsula's lush arable land in the company of a persistent swarm of sticky flies.

In two days I crossed a lot of firths - Beauly, Moray, Cromarty and Dornoch - and stayed in several sleepy waterside towns. In Lairg I timed my midday arrival perfectly for the start of the World Cup final, only to learn that the pubs don't open until 12.30pm on Sundays. After a few minutes the barman took pity on me, wiped my steamy noseprint from the window and let me in to sit with a couple of Swiss-German tourists who couldn't quite decide whether they were supporting Germany.

The next stretch, through deserted Highland moors and lochs, was the most beautiful of the whole trip. Not for nothing is this known as Europe's last wilderness. In the 20 miles from Lairg to my overnight stay at Altnaharra, the only place marked on my map was the Crask Inn, a cheery pub plonked in the middle of nowhere.

Altnaharra itself is a pint-sized village of 30 souls and 800 sheep, in the shadow of Ben Klibreck at 2,367ft. Its main claim to fame is that it is often the coldest place in Britain. The village school has four pupils, one of whom will be left in splendid isolation next term when the other three go to senior school in Bettyhill, a 46-mile daily commute. The "local" shop is in Tongue, 20 miles away, but most people stock up monthly in Inverness, 70 miles away and also the site of the nearest hospital.

As well as a B&B whose owners decamped politely to a caravan in the garden, leaving me the run of their house, Altnaharra boasts a fine hotel much loved by anglers. When I stumbled away from the cosy log fire at midnight with a bellyful of whisky it was still light, the weather was positively balmy and a herd of deer were grazing on the adjacent field. A very Scottish moment.

The next morning I freewheeled for hours first along Loch Naver and then down the wide stony shallows of the River Naver, where a few lone fishermen waited in vain for salmon to swim onto their lines. Because of a dry winter the current heavy rain is being absorbed into the ground rather than raising the level of the river and consequently salmon are few and far between. This area was the site of some of the worst Highland clearances in the 19th century and plaques mark the site of communities destroyed by landlords who claimed the territory to graze sheep.

At Bettyhill I hit the north coast of Scotland, drank some more whisky and locked myself out of my hotel. I had to break back in using a conveniently abandoned ladder. Which wasn't embarrassing at all.

At this point I started meeting other cyclists and walkers completing similar trips to mine. Hats off to Patrick, who had cycled round Scotland in aid of a meningitis charity, and to Alan who had walked 1,300 miles from Land's End, camping along the way. And good luck to Michael, who was on his way south carrying a 40lb pack, optimistically intent on walking the 900 miles to Cornwall in 30 days.

As hilly Sutherland gave way to flat, grassy Caithness I hurtled along the last 50 miles, remembering to hold my breath past the Dounreay nuclear plant. The sun finally came out for my last day and I detoured to watch seals basking at Dunnet Head, mainland Britain's most northerly point.

John O'Groats itself was the non-event I'd been warned to expect - a couple of shops, a few coach parties and a man charging £6 for a photo by the famous fingerpost pointing back to Land's End. It's not even quite at the end of the country.

Anyway, with 1,040 miles on the clock, I rode across a line marked "Finish" in one direction and "Start" in the other and hauled a man out of the Groats Inn to take a photo of me crossing it again. I tried to call home, found my phone had died, and downed a couple of celebratory drinks as I pondered my month in the saddle.

I'm half a stone lighter than when I set off, and half a tone darker. I can mend a puncture in a jiffy, outpace a sheep (just about) and ride off a hangover in about an hour. I'm looking forward to removing the Lycra nappy and to sleeping in my own bed, and if I never eat another cooked breakfast it'll be too soon.

Swerving to avoid a busload of Boy Scouts, I allowed myself a superior smile at the idle car-bound hordes and turned south, reflecting that it is indeed better to travel than to arrive.